"No, nor for every dollar you have in the world. I don't approve your practice and I won't share your plunder. I am sorry for you personally, but I can't help that. I won't oust you. I will make such use of the story as any newspaper man would make, and so I give you fair warning. You may save yourself if you can."
"Then you do not intend to communicate with the heirs?" began
Vincenza eagerly.
"I neither know nor care who they are," interrupted Gerald. "I am not a detective, save in the way of my profession, and I shall certainly not tell what I have discovered to any individual till I give it to the press."
"And that will be?" asked the Spaniard.
"As soon as I return to San Francisco," answered Ffrench. "It may appear in a week or ten days."
"Thank you, senor; good morning," said Vincenza, rising and leaving the room.
Three days later Senor Miguel Vincenza sailed on the outgoing Pacific mail steamer bound for Japan and China. He probably took a considerable sum of money with him, for the heirs of Catalina Costello y Ugarte found the affairs of the deceased in a very tangled state, and the ranch was mortgaged for nearly half its value.
Gerald Ffrench's story occupied four pages of the next issue of the Golden Fleece, and was widely copied and commented on over two continents. Larry, the groom at Ballyvire, read the account in his favorite Westmeath Sentinel, and as he laid the paper down exclaimed in wonder—
"Begob, he found her!"
Lady Betty's Indiscretion